|
Admitted, then- it will be said- for the nobler forms of life;
but how can the divine contain the mean, the unreasoning? The
mean is the unreasoning, since value depends upon reason and the
worth of the intellective implies worthlessness where
intellection is lacking. Yet how can there be question of the
unreasoning or unintellective when all particulars exist in the
divine and come forth from it?
In taking up the refutation of these objections, we must insist
upon the consideration that neither man nor animals here can be
thought of as identical with the counterparts in the higher
realm; those ideal forms must be taken in a larger way. And again
the reasoning thing is not of that realm: here the reasoning,
There the pre-reasoning.
Why then does man alone reason here, the others remaining
reasonless?
Degrees of reasoning here correspond to degrees of Intellection
in that other sphere, as between man and the other living beings
There; and those others do in some measure act by understanding.
But why are they not at man's level of reason: why also the
difference from man to man?
We must reflect that, since the many forms of lives are
movements- and so with the Intellections- they cannot be
identical: there must be different lives, distinct intellections,
degrees of lightsomeness and clarity: there must be firsts,
seconds, thirds, determined by nearness to the Firsts. This is
how some of the Intellections are gods, others of a secondary
order having what is here known as reason, while others again
belong to the so-called unreasoning: but what we know here as
unreasoning was There a Reason-Principle; the unintelligent was
an Intellect; the Thinker of Horse was Intellect and the Thought,
Horse, was an Intellect.
But [it will be objected] if this were a matter of mere thinking
we might well admit that the intellectual concept, remaining
concept, should take in the unintellectual, but where concept is
identical with thing how can the one be an Intellection and the
other without intelligence? Would not this be Intellect making
itself unintelligent?
No: the thing is not unintelligent; it is Intelligence in a
particular mode, corresponding to a particular aspect of Life;
and just as life in whatever form it may appear remains always
life, so Intellect is not annulled by appearing in a certain
mode. Intellectual-Principle adapted to some particular living
being does not cease to be the Intellectual-Principle of all,
including man: take it where you will, every manifestation is the
whole, though in some special mode; the particular is produced
but the possibility is of all. In the particular we see the
Intellectual-Principle in realization; the realized is its latest
phase; in one case the last aspect is "horse"; at "horse" ended
the progressive outgoing towards the lesser forms of life, as in
another case it will end at something lower still. The unfolding
of the powers of this Principle is always attended by some
abandonment in regard to the highest; the outgoing is by loss,
and by this loss the powers become one thing or another according
to the deficiency of the life-form produced by the failing
principle; it is then that they find the means of adding various
requisites; the safeguards of the life becoming inadequate there
appear nail, talon, fang, horn. Thus the Intellectual-Principle
by its very descent is directed towards the perfect sufficiency
of the natural constitution, finding there within itself the
remedy of the failure.
|
|